Ted Williams

Ted Williams, Theodore Samuel Williams (San Diego, CA. 30 August 1918 - Crystal River, FL. 5 July 2002) was a Major League Baseball player; he spent 19 seasons with the Boston Red Sox. Williams was perhaps baseball's finest hitter, setting numerous batting records without the use of steroids. A 502-foot home run that Williams hit at Fenway Park in 1946—a year that he won the Triple Crown—remains the record for the longest homer ever at that park.[1] Williams batted left-handed but was actually right-handed in writing and throwing.

The son of an evangelical mother of Mexican descent, Williams' accomplishments include a .406 season in 1941, which under modern scoring would have been a .411 due to the lack of a penalty for hitting a sacrifice fly today.[2] two Triple Crowns, two MVPs, six American League batting championships, 521 home runs, a lifetime average of .344, 17 All-Star game selections, and universal reverence. Most modern statistical analyses place Williams, along with Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Barry Bonds, among the greatest hitters of all-time.

Williams was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by Baseball Writers in 1966. In addition to serving in World War II, Williams also volunteered and served with distinction as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, which interrupted his career and prevented him from setting even more baseball records. Williams considered General Douglas MacArthur to be one of his heroes.

Eyesight

Williams had 20/10 vision, and his left eye was stronger than his right perhaps due to having been struck in his right eye by a walnut as a youngster. But he rejected the rumor that he had some kind of supernatural eyesight in seeing the pitches. He said he could not see the seams on a pitched ball, "but in the last 20 feet I could see which way it was spinning."[2]